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The evolutionary emergence
The evolutionary emergence from the Inconscience is worked out by two forces:
(a) A secret cosmic consciousness, and
(b) A manifest individual consciousness. (Ibid)
The secret cosmic consciousness which remains behind the surface organizes into a mass-consciousness with a group-mind and a changing yet continuous group-body.
Yet the manifest individual is also needed. As the latter becomes more and more conscious, the group-being also becomes increasingly conscious. The individual has in fact a dual importance. Firstly, it is through the individual that the cosmic spirit organizes its collective units. Secondly, it is through the individual that Nature rises from the Inconscience to the Superconscience and meets the Transcendence. (Ibid, pg.692-693)
The mass-consciousness
The mass-consciousness has its own perils. It moves by a subconscious impulse and can suppress the individual by the common crude idea, the rule of the pack or herd-mentality. The mass-consciousness can be very effective if it finds one or more individuals to embody and organise it and can result in sudden and very powerful crowd-movements. The entire suppression of the individual by the mass-consciousness has led to the formation of powerful military states or communities with a rigid and austere culture. But in the end, this is an index of the outer life and is not the highest term of our being. After all, we have a mind and a soul. Our life and mind have no value if it is not a growing consciousness and not "a means of liberation and fulfilment for the soul, the indwelling Spirit". (Ibid, pg.693)
The individual
The collectivity is a field of formation, the individual is the diviner of truth, the creative form-maker. In the crowd the individual becomes a cell of the mass-body moved by the mass-impulse. He has to stand apart and affirm his uniqueness. "He has, even, in the end to retire into himself in order to find himself, and it is only when he has found himself that he can become spiritually one with all". (Ibid, pg.694) If he has not developed a strong individuality, he may be over-powered by the mass-consciousness. In fact it is a truth that the great evolutionary periods of humanity have occurred in the communities whenever the individual became active, mentally, vitally or spiritually. It is precisely for this reason that the ego was invented by Nature so that "the individual might disengage himself from the inconscience or subconscience of the mass and become an independent living mind, life-power, soul, spirit, co-ordinating himself with the world around him but not drowned in it and separately inexistent and ineffective". (Ibid, pg.694) The individual is not only part of the cosmic being but has descended from the Transcendence. This he cannot manifest at first being close to the Inconscience. He has discover himself as the mental and vital ego before he finds himself as the soul or spirit.
The real Man
As the work with one's ego becomes primary objective, the real knowledge of the being becomes secondary. A time comes when man has to discover his true self -"the real man" (Ibid) beyond his egoistic being. Or else, however great his personal knowledge and efficiency is, he is a bit higher than animals. At first he has to introspect within oneself, know the psychological structure of his being. He realizes that there is something missing in his life and goal. He then seeks the meaning in Nature and mankind to discover his unity with the rest of the world. Or he seeks the meaning in Supernature, in God to realize his unity with the Divine. He attempts both the paths to find solutions on his double line of search.
In that sojourn, man may take the path of self-knowledge and self-mastery in the mental and vital sense and mastery of the world. Or he may be directed to God or seek individual salvation either in heavens or through a separate immergence in the Great Void -be it a supreme Self or supreme Non-self, beatitude or Nirvana. Throughout it is the individual who is seeking self-knowledge, even through altruism and love and service for mankind - "an expanded egoism". (Ibid, pg.695) The separative ego persists till the end or gets extinct in the Great Void. "But there is a deeper secret behind which justifies his individuality and its demand, the secret of the spiritual and eternal individual, the Purusha". (Ibid, pg.696)
It is because of the presence of the Purusha -the formless and limitless Individual Self, the Brahman within the individual that perfection, liberation or salvation has to be individual and not collective. After all, the perfection of the collectivity depends upon the perfection of the individuals constituting it. "It is because the individual is That, that to find himself is his great necessity". (Ibid)
When the ego-the mental, vital, physical ego or even the spiritual ego is abolished, it is the Purusha in the individual who feels the peace and joy, who feels one is nothing or everything, who feels the merger with the Transcendence. "To get beyond the ego is imperative, but one cannot get beyond the self, -- except by finding it supremely, universally." (Ibid) The self is not the ego, it is one with the All or One. While the ego disappears, the self continues to remain, united with the One and the All.
The levels of Ignorance
When the higher self-knowledge begins, man gets above his most apparent self and surpasses several levels of ignorance (Ibid, pg.697):
(I) Temporal ignorance: When one becomes aware of the immortality of soul and realizes that there are lives behind and before oneself, one gets ready to rid of the temporal ignorance. One then enlarges oneself from the immediate moments of Time to possess the sense of Eternity.
(II) Psychological self-ignorance: When one realizes that beyond one's surface being is the subliminal being that extends upwards to the superconscient and downwards to the subconscient, one removes the psychological self-ignorance.
(III) Constitutional self-ignorance: When one discovers that behind the instrumental being is an ever-developing individual soul which again is supported by an immutable Jivatman and that all in oneself is the expression of the spirit and one can discover the link between the lower and higher existence, one surpasses the constitutional self-ignorance.
(IV) Cosmic, egoistic, original ignorance: When one discovers the cosmic self in the cosmic consciousness supporting the individual Jivatman which surpasses the ego-bound individual, one gets over the cosmic, the egoistic and original ignorance for one discovers the link between the cosmos and the individual.
(V) Practical ignorance: As one adapts to this enlarging self-knowledge, one's thought and action get progressively transformed. One overcomes the practical ignorance of oneself and one's object of existence. One progresses from falsehood to "a true and complete existence". (Ibid)
Unity of God, Man and Nature
As one progresses, one discovers the unity of the three categories -God, Man and Nature (Ibid, pg.697-698):
(a) First one discovers one's oneness with cosmos and Nature. Mind, life and body are individualistic formations of cosmic principles. The conscient, the subconscient and the superconscient are cosmic planes to which one can relate.
(b) Second, one finds that in all one is based, one is one with what we call God, be it the Absolute, the spaceless and timeless Self or the Self who is manifest in the cosmos and Lord of Nature. In all this one finds one is derived from the source and projected in the cosmos and veiled in Nature. In both these realizations (a and b), one finds unity with all other souls, relatively in Nature (as one is united mentally, vitally, physically and at level of soul), but absolutely in God (because the Absolute is found to be Self of all)).
(c) Thirdly, one realizes the unity of God and Nature as one discovers that it is the Absolute who is all the relativities -the Self who has become all the becomings, the Shakti and consciousness of the Lord of al beings who is Nature and acts in the cosmos.
"Thus in the progress of our self-knowledge we arrive at that by the discovery of which all is known as one with our self and by the possession of which all is possessed and enjoyed in our own self-existence". (Ibid, pg.698)
Pursuing Nature through these categories, one finds a Supernature (Ibid) behind all that is apparent, "a supreme power of the Spirit in Time and beyond Time, in Space and beyond Space, a conscious Power of the Self who by her becomes all becomings, of the Absolute who by her manifests all relativities ". (Ibid, pg.698-699) She is not merely Energy but a power of Knowledge-Will, Consciousness-Force or Chit-Shakti.
The quest for God
The quest for God is the most ardent of all quests. It started in primitive times by questioning Nature, from animism, spirit-worship and demon-worship but these first forms carry a veiled intuition (Ibid, pg.699) in the subconscient of a "secretly conscious spirit in things distributing itself in every working of energy". (Ibid) Even anthropomorphism integrates nature and divinity, thus emphasizing the interconnectedness of all life-forms. In fact, here he has laid "the groping hand of Ignorance on a truth, -- that his being and the Being are one".(Ibid)
There are myriad religions and philosophies, many of them contradicting each other but there is a secret unity behind all diversity and discord. They might find God in the universality of the cosmic Being or limit Him in humanity only or influenced by the timeless and spaceless Infinite reject Him in Nature and Cosmos. But the truth behind must always be the same as all is the one Divine Infinite that we all seek. "Because everything is that One, there must be this endless variety in the human approach to its possession; it was necessary that man should find God thus variously in order that he might come to know Him entirely." (Ibid, pg.700) Because God is all these contradictory things and something more -"all knowledge is unified in its one comprehensive meaning." (Ibid) All religions are different approaches to a single Truth, all philosophies are different perspectives of a single Reality, all Sciences merge towards a supreme Science. We find what our mind, senses and suprasensuous vision are seeking is found in the integral unity of God, man and Nature and all that is in Nature.
A triune knowledge
There are two levels of God-realization. First is at the transcendent level where God is the Absolute, the Brahman, the timeless Self, the Spirit who is the Lord of Nature, creator of the cosmos. the Soul who is the source of all souls.
Second is at the level of Nature where God, the Self becomes itself the cosmos and the individual. The Absolute is revealed in all relativities, "variously manifested in His own being to His own conscious force for the delight of His various existence". (Ibid, pg.701) "This truth of the Absolute is the justification of the cycles of the world; it is not their denial." (Ibid) This is also the truth of one's being one reaches when Nature-knowledge unites with God-knowledge. It is the Self-Being which has become all these becomings so that one can pronounce-"I am He". (Ibid)
Cosmic energy is actually a derivative of the Conscious-Force, Chit-Shakti of Sachchidananda, the Absolute. It is universal and manifests in the individual though its origin is in the Transcendent. Therefore it is simultaneously "felt in one, in all and in the relations of one with all; --this is the truth of being to which man's entire knowledge of himself in God and in Nature rises and widens". (Ibid)This is how a triune knowledge develops -the complete knowledge of oneself, of Nature and of God. And the conscious unity of the three, God, Soul and Nature in the individual's consciousness is the foundation of one's perfection and realization of all harmonies. This would be one's highest and widest state -the starting-point of the evolution of one's self-knowledge, world-knowledge, God-knowledge.
Date of Update:
31-Oct-25
- By Dr. Soumitra Basu
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